Robert Byrd: Longest-serving lawmaker

by Michael Muskal and Mark Silva

Sen. Robert C. Byrd's tenure as the longest-serving lawmaker in congressional history was marked today with praise but also questions about the senator's health.

"I look forward to serving you for the next 56 years and 320 days," the ninth-term Democratic senator from West Virginia said in a statement marking the occasion.

It was unknown if Byrd would be able to attend today's Senate session. The senator has been in and out of hospitals over the past several months.

Byrd, who arrived on Capitol Hill in January 1953 as a freshman member of the House, has spoken fondly of a time long past "when men ran for the Senate to be a senator. Not to become president, they ran to be a senator. And they loved the Senate.''

Byrd also has offered this advice to newcomers: "Do your work, do your work well, whatever committee you're assigned to, do your work with all your might and in time you will become on to be listened to.''

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the floor this morning to praise Byrd's career.

"Friday is his 92nd birthday. And next week, Byrd writes in his weekly column, should be about Thanksgiving," Reid said. "What does he give thanks for this year? The privilege, he writes, of representing 'our great people in the United States Senate.''

Since June 12, 2006, Byrd has been the longest-serving senator. Later that year, he was elected to an unprecedented ninth term. Byrd has cast more than 18,000 votes and "despite fragile health that has kept him from the Senate floor during much of this year, has a nearly 98 percent attendance record over the course of his career," Reid noted.

Byrd's career has spanned 20,774 days. On Tuesday, Byrd tied the record set by Carl Hayden (D-Ariz.), who served in the House, then the Senate, from 1912 to 1969.

See some of Byrd's words above, and below the fold, courtesy of C-SPAN:

(Photo of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) accompanied by longtime staffer Martha Anne McIntosh as he arrived on Capitol Hill on Aug. 6 by Susan Walsh / AP)

Byrd, on being a senator:

"I'm always enthralled by the Senate chamber itself. The walls themselves, if they could speak what would they tell us? What could they tell us?

"I think of the great men and women who have served there. Great men and women of my time. When I first came to the Senate there was Margaret J. Smith of Maine, one woman. And I think of, I think of Senator Richard Russell. I think of Senator... um... Norris Cotton. Senator George Aiken. Senator Mike Mansfield, Senator Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson. These men were there when I first came to the Senate.

"That was when men ran for the Senate to be a Senator. Not to become President, they ran to be a Senator. And they loved the Senate.

"That's the kind of men that were there when I came to the Senate. Of course it has a great history of great triumvirate of Senators: Webster, Calhoun, and Clay, and I would also add Thomas Benton of Missouri with others there, that's a great Senator. But that Senate is the forum where the people speak and where Senators can speak as long as their feet will hold them and if their feet won't hold them they can get unanimous consent to speak at their desk. That is the protection of the people's liberties. As long as there is a place where one can speak as loudly as he wishes and as long as his lungs will last, then we can be sure the people's liberties will endure...''

On advice for newcomers:

"I was a member of the House of Representatives when I first came to Congress in January of 1953... a member of the House of Representatives. Many times in the House of Representatives I would say, "Thank God for the United States Senate. Thank God for the Senate." I said that because in the Senate, a Senator is one man among ninety-six at the time I came here, then ninety-eight and a hundred as it is now, one man, he can speak at length. There is freedom of debate, freedom of speech in the Senate.

I remember in the House of Representatives I thought I had ten minutes at one point and when it finally came up to me I had one minute. That's not so in the Senate. And that's why I wanted to come to the Senate, and that's what I would say to a new member. I would say, "Senator, you are a member of a forum in which you can speak you mind as long as you wish. Now work hard in your committees. If you will be a workhorse in your committees, other Senators will listen to you. They will recognize you as someone who has done his homework, or her homework.

"So do your work, do your work well, whatever committee you're assigned to, do your work with all your might and in time you will become on to be listened to.''